Fortifications

Fortifications are engineered
defenses designed to reduce the number of troops required to defend a
position. Strategically, they serve to release troops for other
operations. They cannot win a battle by themselves, since they are
immobile. They can always be reduced, in time, by a sufficiently large
enemy force, unless a relieving force throws the enemy back.

Types of Fortifications

Fixed fortifications are hardened
permanent structures whose construction often takes considerable time
and resources. For this reason, they are often constructed in
peacetime as permanent components of the national defense
infrastructure. Fixed fortifications include large-caliber coastal
defense guns emplaced in concrete and steel casemates, such as those that defended Singapore, Manila Bay, and other major ports; systems of concrete pillboxes forming a defensive line along a strategic frontier, such as the Gin Drinker's Line at Hong Kong; and other similar fortifications.

Field works are improvised fortifications that are
constructed during hostilities by armies in the field. Field works are
further broken down into hasty field works and deliberate field works.
Hasty field works include fox holes and open camouflaged positions
protected by barbed wire, which are constructed on a time scale of
hours. Deliberate field works include systems of trenches and covered
positions protected by minefields, which are constructed on time scales
of days to weeks. The construction of hasty field works is colloquially
known as "digging in," and the ability to rapidly dig in after a
successful attack was key to repelling subsequent counterattacks. The U.S. Army estimated that it took 90
minutes for a soldier to excavate and camouflage an individual
rifleman's foxhole, up to 8 man-hours to fully prepare a machine gun
pit, and up to 28 man-hours to fully prepare an antitank gun position.

Infantry were provided with entrenching tools as part of their standard kit. The
standard U.S. entrenching tool was designed so the blade could fold up
for easier carrying, be fully extended when used as a shovel, or be
partially extended to be used as a pick. Tool packs that included
crowbars, saws, axes, wire cutters, picks, and full-sized shovels were
issued as needed to infantry formations, and barbed wire, mines, and
other matériel for fortification were stockpiled by engineers. The
Japanese and British also issued entrenching tools to their
infantrymen, and the British version had a bayonet lug to allow the
entrenching tool to be converted into a mine prod.

A major hindrance to fortification in many parts of the
Pacific was the high water table, which meant that deep fortifications
would gradually fill with water. Even where the water table was
relatively low, heavy rainfall could flood hasty entrenchments.
Deliberate entrenchments could be constructed with drainage channels
where the water table was low enough, but this took additional effort.
Damp soil also flows under its own weight, which meant that
excavated positions could collapse on their occupants unless the
excavation was stabilized with sandbags, cut sod, lumber, burlap and chicken wire, or expanded metal or corrugated iron. The Marines at Iwo Jima
found that the volcanic ash covering the island had almost no ability
to support its own weight even when dry, and the inability of the
troops to quickly entrench increased their vulnerability to heavy
Japanese fire.

Another hindrance to fortification was rocky ground. A number of islands, including Peleliu and Los Negros, were characterized by terrain consisting of a thin layer of soil over almost solid coral.

Fortifications include concealed and protected positions,
cleared fields of fire, communications, and obstacles.

Concealed Positions. Concealed
positions make use of terrain and natural vegetation, supplemented at times with artificial camouflage, in order to be difficult for the enemy to spot. This allows troops in the position to surprise
an unwary attacker and slow an attack by forcing the attacker to scout
the area. Well-trained troops were careful to remove natural sod and
debris from both the site to be excavated and the location where the
spoil (excavated material) would be placed; the sod and debris could
then be used to conceal both position and spoil. Topsoil was kept
separate from the (usually lighter) subsoil and used to conceal the
subsoil spoil. Concealed
positions are largely a feature of hasty field works, since
fortifications that are in place for a long time are likely to be well
scouted by any potential attacker. However, even concealed positions
known to the enemy are more difficult
to hit with long range fire, since the effects of the fire are
difficult to observe.

The Japanese were generally skilled at concealing positions
and in the use of camouflage. Where time permitted, vegetation was
deliberately planted on top of positions and camouflage was carefully
blended with the natural surroundings. On palm-covered atolls, the
Japanese would place palm fronds around positions and these would be
indistinguishable from palm fronds knocked down by the Allied
prelanding bombardment. Japanese troops were issued camouflage nets
with green, brown, and tan strips woven through the nets. However,
dazzle patterns for large structures, such as concrete pillboxes,
bunkers, hangars, warehouses, and so on, were less skillfully done than
natural camouflage.

Protected Positions. Protected positions offer physical protection from enemy fire. They
range from a hastily dug foxhole to massive concrete and steel
casemates requiring months or years for construction. Hasty field works
usually offer little overhead protection, which is thus a distinctive
feature of deliberate field works and fixed fortifications. However,
the U.S. Army assumed that ordinary trenches provided adequate
protection from small arms, and from anything but a direct hit from
shells of less than 4" (105mm) caliber or bombs of under 50 pounds (23
kg). Protection could be enhanced by placing the position in defilade,
that is, taking advantage of terrain features to protect the position
from direct fire.

Overhead protection for deliberate field works ideally
consisted of a surface camouflage cover of earth and natural
vegetation, underneath which was a burster layer designed to activate
fuses on bombs and shells. American forces typically constructed the
burster layer from prefabricated concrete bursters, reinforced concrete
beams, concrete or brick rubble, or poured concrete. Underneath was a
cushion layer, ideally a layer of gravel on a layer of tamped earth,
and beneath the cushion layer was a distributing layer of wired logs,
concrete beams, or iron I-beams to transmit forces to the sides of the
fortified position. There might be multiple alternating cushion layers
and distributing layers in the strongest fortifications. The U.S. Army
estimated that a 5" (13 cm) reinforced concrete bursting layer was
adequate to protect against a direct hit from a 75mm shell, while 16"
(41 cm) was required against 155mm shells and 24" (61 cm) was required
against a 100 lb (45 kg) general purpose bomb. In general, reinforced
concrete was twice as effective as wired logs, over three times as
effective as coarse gravel, and seven times as effective as tamped
earth.

Antiaircraft
positions were very difficult to conceal, since they generally needed
to be sited in open areas with clear fields of fire in all directions.
They were also difficult to protect, because they could be given little
or no overhead protection. However, the Japanese developed a "double
donut" emplacement consisting of two concentric parapets around the
gun, with the openings offset, and perhaps some gesture of concealment
in the form of camouflage nets or palm fronds.

A unique feature of Japanese fortifications on Betio at Tarawa was the presence of prefabricated
steel pillboxes left over from the Russo-Japanese War. These were
hexagonal in plan, measured about 9' (2.7m) across the bottom and
tapered to the top, and were just over 8' (2.4m) high. They had double
walls 0.25" (6mm) thick with the layers spaced a foot (30 cm) apart and
the space filled with sand. They were used as company command posts but also housed two heavy machine guns.

Fields of Fire. Concealment or protection are of little use if a position does not command a useful field of fire.
Clearing a field of fire may mean hastily removing some vegetation
from immediately in front of a machine gun pit or completely clearing the area
within several hundred yards of a fixed fortification. There is a
obvious trade off between clearing fields of fire and maintaining
concealment. Good fields of fire are also a function of terrain, and
positions on high ground have been favored for their superior fields of
fire since the introduction of arrows and spears to warfare. However, a
position that can see the entire battlefield is a position that can be
fired upon from the entire battlefield, and positions on high
ground were often placed on the reverse slope, sacrificing some of
their field of fire for the protection of being in defilade.
The U.S. Army estimated that it took 90 man-minutes per 100 square
yards (84 square meters) to hastily clear a field of fire, and
3.5 man-hours per 100 square yards for more deliberate clearance of
fields of fire.

The Japanese were particularly skilled at clearing fields of fire. Low
branches and vegetation were carefully cleared from selected firing
lanes while higher branches were left in place, so that the approaching
enemy were unaware they had walked into a firing lane.

Top view of a stepped port

Just as there is a tradeoff between commanding a good field
of fire and being exposed to fire, there is a tradeoff between firing
ports that give large firing arcs and firing ports that provide
adequate cover. Concrete ports were often built with a wide outer
opening and smaller inner opening to maximize protection while
maintaining good firing arcs, but such ports had to be constructed in
steps so that they did not funnel projectiles into the inner opening.

Communications. Secure communications include
communications trenches or
tunnels between positions and protected telephone lines. The Japanese
sometimes constructed tunnels from oil drums with their ends removed
and laid end to end. Telephone
lines take significant time and effort to lay down and so are a
feature only of fixed and deliberate field fortifications. Telephones
had a significant advantage over radio in their reliability and
security, though artillery
could sometimes cut telephone cables and enemy
infiltrators could cut or tap into telephone lines. In fixed positions,
or where there was ample time for constructing field works, telephone
lines could be buried a foot (30 cm) underground, which gave them
somewhat greater resistance to artillery fire and concealed them from
infiltrators.

Obstacles. Obstacles hinder enemy movement. They include barbed wire,
antitank ditches, iron tetrahedra, "dragon's teeth" (large concrete
roadblocks), and the deliberate flooding of low-lying areas. More primitive improvised obstacles include the punji stick, a
sharpened bamboo or wooden stick placed upright in the ground where an
unwary enemy soldier might step on it and suffer an ugly wound to his
food or leg. Punji sticks were first encountered by the British in Burma in the 19th century, but were used by American and Filipino troops in Bataan, who lacked mines or barbed wire with which to construct more conventional obstacles.

A variation on the punji stick, which was taught to the Kachinguerrillas
of northern Burma, was the cartridge trap. This was a simple improvised
booby trap consisting of a rifle cartridge set atop a buried spike so
that the primer of the cartridge rested on the spike and the top of the
bullet was just above ground level. An unwary soldier stepping on the
cartridge would force the primer down on the spike, firing the
cartridge. Although the force of an unconfined cartridge was much less
than that of a cartridge fired in a gun barrel, it was often still
sufficient for the bullet to penetrate the soldier's foot and render him
hors de combat.

Barbed wire could be laid in a number of patterns,
depending on how much barbed wire was available and how much time was
available for arranging it. When supplies were short, nothing more
could be done than to string a few strands along low posts where they
were difficult to spot. When wire was plentiful, single or double apron
barbed wire barriers could be constructed. Concertina wire was barbed
wire shaped into coils so that it could be laid out as large coils
resting on the ground.

Mines and
booby traps are also considered obstacles, even though they are designed
to inflict casualties,
because they instill caution in advancing troops, who must either take
time to clear the mines and booby traps or suffer the consequences for morale
of advancing into a known minefield. Antipersonnel mines were designed
to detonate when activated by the weight of a single soldier, while
antitank mines carried a larger explosive
charge and were activated only by the weight of a heavy vehicle. (The
latter should not be confused with antitank "mines", actually demolition
charges, attached to a tank by an intrepid infantryman using magnets or
adhesive.)

The principal Japanese antipersonnel mine was the Type 93 mine, which was detonated by a force of 20 lbs to 250 lbs (9kg
to 110kg) anywhere on its upper surface. It contained about 2 lbs (0.9
kg) of explosive, but at the maximum pressure setting and with
additional explosives emplaced under the mine, it made a serviceable
antitank mine. The American counterpart was the M3 antipersonnel mine,
which could be triggered either by 20 to 40 lbs (9 to 18 kg) pressure
or a tripwire and which contained 0.9lbs (0.4 kg) TNT in a heavy cast
iron case. The fragments were expected to be lethal within a 10 yard
(9m) radius when emplaced on the ground, or up to 100 yards (90 m) when
detonated several feet above the ground (as when deployed with a
tripwire.) The Americans also developed their own version of the German
S-mine, the M2A3, which when triggered fired a large grenade a few feet
into the air, where it exploded with maximum effect.

The American
antitank mine was the M1A1, which contained a 5.8 lb (2.6 kg) charge of
TNT detonated by a pressure of 250 to 500 lbs (110 to 220 kg).
The Japanese antitank mine was dubbed the "yardstick mine" by American
troops, as it was a yard (36" or 91cm) long and 3.35" by 1.8" (8.5cm by
4.5cm) square. It contained eight blocks of picric acid explosive
totalling 6 lbs or 2.7 kg and was fused to explode under a weight of
336 lbs (152 kg). Both Japanese and American antitank mines had enough
explosive power to break the track on a tank, but the Japanese often
planted enough additional explosives under the yardstick mine to
completely destroy a tank.

In general, the Japanese did not make effective use of mines until after the invasion of Saipan in June 1944. Mines were poorly sited and inadequately camouflaged. American
troops encountered extensive minefields in the Philippines, Iwo Jima,
and Okinawa, mostly behind likely landing beaches.

Fortifications in the Pacific War

In the early months of the war, the Japanese benefited from the naval disarmament
treaties, which had greatly restricted the fortification of Allied territories in the
western Pacific. The only significant fortresses the Japanese had to
reduce were Corregidor and its
outlying batteries (Fort Hughes and Fort Drum) and Singapore. The Americans had begun
fortifying Wake Island, but the fixed
fortifications were still very far from complete when war broke out.
The fortifications at Singapore were designed with attack from the sea
in mind, and were almost useless against the land campaign down Malaya that actually developed.
Corregidor did in fact prove costly for the Japanese to reduce, but
with no possibility of relief, and with the Japanese in complete
control of air and sea, the fortress could not hold out forever. Wake
successfully repelled the first Japanese amphibious assault against
it, in spite of its incomplete fortifications, but succumbed to a
second assault with massive air and sea support after Pye decided to call off a
relief operation.

Elsewhere the Allies were dependent on field works and
obstacles. Barbed wire was in short supply, as were mines, and the
British in Malaya showed an
astonishing reluctance to entrench, with
commanders claiming that this was bad for morale. The Americans in the
Philippines built
extensive field works in the Bataan
Peninsula that proved costly
for the Japanese to assault; but, with inadequate supplies and no hope
of relief, the field works could only delay the inevitable.

At Guadalcanal the
Marines rapidly entrenched
themselves and set out barbed wire in front of their lines. The barbed
wire was typically strung with noisemakers, such as tin cans containing
a few pebbles, that would alert the Marines to any infiltration of
their front. These defenses proved effective at the Battle of the
Tenaru River and were important also at the Battle of Bloody Ridge. Japanese infiltrators eventually learned to hold up a finger while creeping towards American positions at night in order to detect these tripwires.

By then the Allies had gone over to the offensive, and were
beginning to discover just how skillful the Japanese were at
constructing fortifications.
The Japanese Army's doctrinal emphasis on the offense meant that Japanese officer had little training in defensive tactics,
such as construction of fortifications, but the Japanese learned
quickly. Japanese infantry were particularly skilled at the use of the concealed
one-man fighting holes which they called "octopus pots" from their
resemblance to cookware used to boil cuttlefish. The Allies dubbed
these "spider holes" from their fancied resemblance to the den of a
trapdoor spider.

Australian
and American units closing
in on Buna discovered that the
Japanese engineers in the beachhead had constructed formidable field
works from coconut logs. The spongy
wood of the coconut logs absorbed
shock very effectively, and the coconut log bunkers quickly were
overgrown by jungle vegetation that
provided excellent concealment. The bunkers were roofed with additional
coconut logs, sometimes reinforced with steel beams, making them
impervious to infantrymortars. Furthermore, the bunkers
were so positioned that they had interlocking fields of fire; that is,
each bunker was within the field of fire of neighboring bunkers, so
that troops closely assaulting a bunker could be fired on by its
neighbors.

Larger bunkers were often subdivided by internal
partitions, so that if one position was knocked out by flame throwers,
shells, or explosives, the other positions remained active. Japanese
troops sometimes dug grenade wells in their bunkers or foxholes, which
were deep holes into which a Japanese soldier might attempt to move a
live grenade before it exploded. The explosion would be directed
straight up, and the soldiers in the position could gain considerable
protection by lying flat on the ground away from the well. Grenade
wells also served as drainage sumps when constructed in loose soil well
above the water table. American troops soon adopted the practice
themselves, digging grenade pockets in the corners of their foxholes
whenever time permitted. Japanese bunkers were also protected against
grenades
with small ditches in front of ports to catch rolling grenades and
blast walls behind entrances to catch grenades thrown into an entrance.

The Japanese standardized the construction of fixed and
deliberate works, based on the kind of firepower the bunker was
expected to withstand (Rottman 2003):

Classification

Offers protection from

Reinforced concrete

Rock and coral

Rock and brick

Sand and soil

Special A

1 ton bomb or 16" (406mm) shell

9.75' (3m)

16.5' (5m)

—

—

Special B

500 lb (227 kg) bomb or 8" (203mm) shell

5' (1.5m)

8.25' (2.5m)

A

250 lb (113 kg) bomb or 6" (152mm) shell

2.6' (0.79m)

5' (1.5m)

6.5' (2m)

26' (8m)

B

100 lb (45 kg) bomb or 3" (76mm) shell

1.66' (0.5m)

2.66' (0.8m)

4' (1.2m)

16.5' (5m)

C

25 lb (11 kg) bomb or large fragments

1' (30 cm)

1.66' (0.5m)

2.33' (0.71m)

6.5' (2m)

D

13.2mm bullets or small fragments

2.5" to 4" (6.4cm to 10cm)

9" (23 cm)

9" (23 cm)

3.25' (1m)

However, while the basic layout and construction of
fortifications was dictated by Army field manuals, the Japanese showed
considerable flexibility, particularly in construction. Japanese logistics being as
stretched as they were, Japanese engineers often had to make do with
local materials.

The Japanese made particularly heavy use of antitank
ditches and other antitank obstacles and antitank mines to compensate
for their inferior antitank weaponry. The
Japanese were frequently short of purpose-built antitank mines and
improvised, using aircraft bombs or large artillery shells, which were
either electrically fired remotely or detonated by a soldier in a spider
hole with the bomb. The latter was encountered in Burma (Allen 1984):

They had been over this ground the day before, and
[Colonel Alan Wakefield] now noticed that it was covered in pock marks
in regular lines. He told the tanks to stop and cover him with their
guns, then went forward and began to shoot each human mine in the head.
Every now and then he would pause to reload, then move on to the next
series of pock marks. None of the Japanese detonated their bombs—
Wakefield was not a tank, and they had been told to do it only for
tanks — and he remained miraculously unscathed by fire from the
Japanese in the
railway station ... The ground was clear, and the tanks rolled on.

Where the terrain permitted, Japanese fortifications tended
to be sited on reverse slopes or other locations where they were not
exposed to fire except from relatively short range. This was meant to
minimize the firepower advantage of the Allies, though at the cost of
restricted fields of fire.

One weakness of Japanese fortifications was the elaborate
systems of communications trenches promulgated in field manuals. These
reflected the lack of experience in trench warfare of the modern
Japanese army, and were relatively easily overrun.

Infantry attempting to assault a bunker had little choice
but to attempt to get close enough to throw grenades through the firing slits.
Ideally, the bunker's occupants, as well as those of neighbor bunkers,
should have been pinned down first by supporting fire from automatic
weapons; but the excellent cover provided by the bunkers made fire
superiority extremely difficult to achieve. Most soldiers attempted to
put a grenade through a bunker's firing slits only once.

The bunkers at Buna were eventually reduced with the aid of
artillery and tanks. The Australians contrived to
bring in 25-pounder artillery pieces by barge, and the heavy shells of
these weapons were able to tear apart the Japanese bunkers, or at least
stun their occupants enough to allow a successful infantry attack. The
Japanese lacked antitank weapons, and so tanks were able to approach
bunkers with impunity, providing cover for friendly infantry and direct
fire support with their guns, which were able to shoot into the firing
slits of the bunkers.

Similar bunkers were encountered at the Gifu position on
Guadalcanal, where the Japanese had built a line of about 45 bunkers.
Each bunker was dug into the ground so that it projected only three
feet (one meter) above the surface, with walls two logs thick and roofs
three logs thick. Earth was thrown up around the walls to provide
concealment and further protection. There was room in each for about
one or two machine guns and their crews plus two or three riflemen.
Nothing short of a direct hit from a 105mm gun was capable of
destroying such a bunker. It is a tribute to the hardiness of the
Japanese
that their hungry, ragged engineers were able to construct such bunkers
in such numbers in the depths of the jungle.

Later in the war, the Allies made extensive use of flamethrowers to reduce bunkers
and pillboxes. The flaming napalm
could be splashed through firing
slits to cause direct casualties
or to force the defenders to retreat
for lack of oxygen (consumed by the burning fuel.) However,
the flamethrower operator was highly vulnerable to counter fire because
of the bulky fuel and propellant tanks he was carrying.

During the New Guinea campaign, in which the Americans
encountered large numbers of pillboxes, standard tactics were worked
out for reducing a pillbox. First, thorough reconnaissance
was performed to determine the enemy positions, strength, and
intentions. Second, a reconnaissance in force was carried out by a
reinforced platoon to further uncover the enemy positions. Third,
an artillery bombardment was carried out to strip vegetation and other
cover, damage enemy fortifications, and kill, wound, and demoralize
enemy forces. Fourth, 81mm mortars would provide close support to the
infantry. For this purpose, 60mm mortars were found ineffective, but
the 81mm shell was heavy enough to penetrate the jungle canopy and
sometimes the tops of the pillboxes themselves. Finally, the infantry
would carry out a single or double envelopment and attack with small
arms, grenades, and flame throwers.

As the Allies advanced into areas long occupied by the Japanese,
such as the Gilberts and Marshalls, they began to
encounter concrete pillboxes.
These were constructed by the Japanese
wherever there was time and adequate materials. The ideal pillbox had
thick reinforced concrete walls and roofs, sometimes with added layers
of earth or steel rails. They were provided with narrow firing slits
that allowed the occupants of the bunker to fire on approaching troops
while exposing only a few square inches of their own body area.

Concrete is extremely strong in compression. The steel rods
incorporated in reinforced concrete provide strength in tension as
well. As a result, reinforced concrete resists both the strong shock
(compression) and tearing forces (tension) produced by high explosives.
Concrete is impervious to small arms
fire, and only a direct hit from a large-caliber shell was likely to do
significant damage. These bunkers could be reduced by accurate naval gunfire, especially
plunging fire, but all too often the infantry had to reduce surviving
bunkers with tanks, high explosive charges, and flamethrowers.

The Japanese became adept at constructing strong
points
out of the limestone caves that are so common in the islands of the
Pacific. These caves had walls and ceilings made of the natural
equivalent of concrete, but far thicker than those of any man made
bunker. The caves could be enlarged and interconnected, and the
Japanese often put steel doors at the entrances of the larger caves.
Japanese artillery could be wheeled out, fire a few rounds, then
retreat behind the steel doors, which were impervious to
counter battery fire. Such fortifications proved extremely
costly to reduce at Peleliu and Okinawa.

The chief disadvantage of concrete or solid rock, aside from the
expense, was its tendency to spall when hit by a large-caliber shell or
subjected to a strong explosive shock. Fragments of rock or concrete
would tear off the inside surface of the structure and could inflict
significant damage. This could be prevented by lining such
fortifications with sandbags, which absorbed spall fragments.

A final twist was provided by the soft volcanic terrain of Iwo Jima. Here the volcanic tuff was
easily tunneled yet resistant to shock. Furthermore, the volcanic ash
covering the island was discovered to make superb concrete when mixed
with Portland cement. The Japanese were estimated to have constructed
at least 300 separate fixed fortifications throughout the island,
ranging from spider holes large enough for just a single soldier to
multistory underground headquarters. Perhaps half were knocked out by
naval bombardment, but the remainder were enough to make Iwo Jima the
bloodiest battle of the Pacific War in proportion to the number of
troops involved.

In addition, most of the thirty tanks of 26 Tank Regiment were buried up to their turrets in
the soft volcanic ash, becoming steel pillboxes. This made them more
difficult targets but sacrificed their mobility. Since the battle was
characterized by positional warfare with little room for maneuver, this
doubtless seemed like a reasonable trade off to the Japanese.

It has been alleged that the Allied commanders briefly
considered the use of mustard gas
to flush the Japanese out of their defenses, but the suggestion was
dropped. Mustard gas might well have proven highly effective, since it
is heavier than air and readily sinks into confined underground spaces.
The result would have been about as many Japanese dead (i.e., almost
all of them) but possibly many fewer Allied casualties. However, the
political and moral cost and the
risk of retaliation in kind was
considered unacceptable.